


A Welcome Distraction

by forthegreatergood



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha isn’t sure if she’d call Pepper her opponent, but she is finding it hard to keep her eyes off her.  </p>
<p>Pepper sees the way Tony looks at Natalie Rushman and tries to tell herself that quick rush of heat along her skin is jealousy.</p>
<hr/><p>Natasha and Pepper distract each other during the events of <i>Iron Man 2</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Welcome Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> All characters property of Marvel. Quoted lines are all from the theatrical release of _Iron Man 2_.

“Never take your eye off your opponent.”

Natasha isn’t sure if she’d call Pepper her opponent, but she is finding it hard to keep her eyes off her. Stark barely needs bait on the hook before he’s taken it. It takes her ten seconds to reel him in. Pepper’s paying more attention to him than she is to anything else in the room, including the paperwork rocketing her to the top of the corporate ladder. Natasha’s used to people not minding when she gets in their personal space. She’s not used to them not noticing. She takes Stark’s trainer down with theatrics that would have Clint laughing until he fell off his perch, but that’s all right. They’re not for his benefit. She’s got Pepper’s full attention now. It’s five seconds before Pepper remembers to be worried about the friend Natasha just laid out. She wonders what it would take to push that to a full minute.

“I want one.”

Pepper sees the way Tony looks at Natalie Rushman and tries to tell herself that quick rush of heat along her skin is jealousy. She’s never modeled in Tokyo. She’s never modeled anywhere. She’s definitely never modeled lingerie, which Tony is helpfully underlining by blowing up some absolutely gorgeous photos of Ms. Rushman with half her clothes off. She swallows. It’s definitely jealousy. It’s gone straight to her head and made her wonder what Ms. Rushman’s legs would feel like wrapped around her waist. She needs to open her mouth and tell him no. She needs to put her foot down and tell him that he isn’t allowed. She needs to be the responsible one. She _needs_. She can bring herself to say the word. She can’t bring herself to follow up on it.

“Whatever happens the next 20 minutes, just go with it.”

It’s easy to pretend that the shock is seeing Natalie again, already ensconced as Tony’s new PA, and not seeing Natalie in that dress. Then she’s taking the drink out of Pepper’s hand, and it’s hard to keep her attention on Tony. She’s angry that he’s ambushed her with this, and she settles into the comfortable familiarity of that response. It’s okay to be angry about his behavior. It’s familiar to be angry about his behavior. She could be angry about his behavior in her sleep. The waiter gives her a sympathetic look and pretends not to notice the way she almost misses the drink she’s retrieving from his tray because her eyes have somehow strayed to Natalie’s ass. _Very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit,_ she reminds herself.

“Did you know about this?”

Natasha hears the sharpness in Pepper’s voice and links it to the excited buzzing of the rest of the crowd. Stark is misbehaving. The sky is blue. Water is wet. But Pepper is looking up at her, and it feels right in a way that she doesn’t often get to experience. Pepper is genuinely rattled, and she puts on her best Natalie voice and tries to soothe her with rapid-fire assurances. She doesn’t want to go retrieve Hogan. She wonders if Pepper will let herself be talked into laying out for security comms. She doesn’t want to have to leave Pepper’s side the next time Stark needs extricating.

“You lose, Stark.”

She’s not leaving Pepper’s side the next time Stark needs extricating.

“He’s downstairs.”

Pepper’s trying to ward off the vultures who have their eye on Stark Industries. She’s trying to figure out what Tony’s not telling her. She’s trying not to notice the way that Natalie has insinuated herself into her space as if she were Pepper’s PA and not Tony’s. She’s _trying_. It’s not working.

“We’re gonna say good night now, and thank you all for coming.”

Pepper’s trying to focus on Tony. She is. There’s something going on, and he won’t tell her what it is, and she’s worried about him. And she needs everyone who doesn’t live here gone, because she and Rhodey had a lot of yelling and intervening and begging to do. But it’s hard not to think about what she walked in on, just then, with him standing there and Natalie wearing his gauntlet. If she’s honest, his armor scares her a little. It’s been hard not to put it right next to hard liquor and fast cars in the box labeled Things With Which Tony Might Kill Himself. She doesn’t want to think about how Natalie wearing the armor made her mouth go dry and her knees weaken a little for entirely different reasons. She doesn’t want to think about the way Natalie’s face and, God help her, Natalie’s _cleavage_ looked in the glow from the gauntlet. She doesn’t want to think about what she’d be doing right now if he hadn’t seen her and made her come back. She thinks about it anyway.

“Don’t you ‘Miss Potts’ me! I’m on to you!”

Natasha can’t tell if Pepper’s made her, or if Pepper’s jealous, or if Pepper’s displacing her anger at Stark. She can tell that Stark is having another powersuit fight within fifteen feet of Pepper, and that this is going in her report with a suitable level of bureaucratic venom.

“Hit him.”

If Natasha were a better person, she wouldn’t enjoy shoving a needle in Stark’s neck. She’s not, and she does.

“Wheels up in 25 minutes.”

Pepper’s still trying to ward off the vultures who have their eye on Stark Industries. She’s stopped trying to figure out what Tony’s not telling her. If she didn’t know him so well, she’d be convinced by the way he’s teetering on the brink of saying something that he’ll take the plunge soon. She’s not convinced, because she knows him as well as any other human being ever will. She’s settled into a quiet enjoyment of the way that Natalie has slotted herself into the role of Pepper’s PA without being asked. She appreciates the way Natalie’s wardrobe has altered to be subtly more respectable without being any less revealing and wishes she had the energy to remind herself about very expensive sexual harassment lawsuits and the advisability of avoiding them. She doesn’t wish very hard.

"Fallaces sunt rerum species."

Natasha has seen enough to be almost certain that she can’t take Pepper away from Stark, even if it were a desirable outcome of her assignment. She still wants to try. She wants to plant the seeds. She wants to pry loose the fittings. She wants to set the lures. She _wants_. She eyes the carton of strawberries, to which _she_ at least knows Pepper is allergic, on her way out. Staying within some mission parameters is more difficult than others.

“I’ll keep the car down here, all right?”

Natasha catches herself mirroring Pepper’s walk on the way up the stairs to the Expo’s main stage and then Pepper’s expression when Hammer starts talking. She tries not to imagine what Pepper would look like in a SHIELD uniform, which leads directly to her trying not to imagine what it would be like to get Pepper out of a SHIELD uniform. She gets to enjoy not imagining it for roughly two minutes before Stark shows up. She begins calculating the time it will take Pepper to get into the car and out of the likely blast radius even though she knows Pepper isn’t going to leave.

“You tell me who’s behind this.”

Pepper didn’t think it would be possible to get this turned on by a situation involving Justin Hammer. She’s a big enough woman to admit that she was wrong about that. Maybe if they all make it out of this alive, she can transfer Natalie to loss prevention and outfit her with one of those security comms she suggested after the mess in Monaco. One of the models with continuous a/v recording and remote data storage.

“You really were dying?”

Natasha is sure there’s no way Fury will ever sign the paperwork to draft Pepper. If Stark is this bad with Pepper leaning on him as hard as she does, he’d turn supervillain in no time without her riding herd. But she is definitely going to spend the next few months persuading Fury to sign paperwork authorizing her borrow Pepper every so often.


End file.
